...Such as keeping your beads where you want them while you plan out a necklace.

I like using it instead of those beading trays because it can hold oddly shaped beads how you need them, keeping the holes horizontal and such. I just roll out a coil and flatten it to the table to the length I want and it works out really well. I can push my beads into it and it doesn't get all stuck in/on them or anything.

And this is that necklace finished:



I am extremely pleased with how it turned out. Besides the gemstone beads used, the rest are all handmade by me, either ceramic or polymer, including the copper clasp.

Because this hat is soooo snuggly! :) And I am soooo relieved to finally have it listed.



How relieved? This relieved!

Weeeee!
And today I awoke at 6:30 in the morning completely on my own! Imagine that! I thought getting up at 7 was going to be hard so I was pleasantly surprised.

The other day I started painting the envelopes I have to make them a little more interesting and fun to get in the mail. I made this bean stamp from my sculpey and was pleased that it worked.



Here are the ones I've finished so far.



The colors in those photos are not perfect matches to what they really are, but you get the idea.
Fun fun! :)

I finally finished my new Etsy/blogger banner. You like? Also changed my blog colors. And i finished a hat just now, but here is a new necklace I recently posted.



The bean beads are polymer, the rest are ceramic. All made by me.

..but technically it's the 2nd now. Meh. And one of my goals for 2009 is to stop procrastinating, go figure.
Also I had a couple of pictures to post but can't find my camera cord, so I guess there's my motivation to finish unpacking my stuff tomorrow. :9
But anyways! I finally graduated college with a BFA in ceramics. Yay! Now the plan is to save up money so that I can afford to move to wherever grad school may be. I still have to narrow down where I want to apply, and i won't be applying until Fall 2010. Right now my biggest goal is to get my Etsy going enough to be able to sell my items full time. And if I can just get a small kiln, that would help sooo much. But until then I have to make do with what I have. So I guess now this will sort of be a journal of that goal. Scary! haha. But thanks to having an awesome boyfriend that can allow me to try this Etsy thing head on for a while, I'll have all the time in the world to work on my Etsy and this journal and some other things. :) So wish me luck! Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a more substantial post to type up, haha.

I've just set up an email list, and if you are interested, there is a box to the right of my blog where you can sign up! It will not be something I do constantly, and bug you with a flood of spam, but I wanted one for updates and notifications of my Etsy site and blog including promotions, projects, a new listing that may be something special or different from my typical shop items, tips and tricks for other crafters, sharing things on etsy that I may think are great to help promote other artists, etc...

When I get a good number of people on my list (20-30 people?) I'd like to do something fun to kick it off like maybe a contest. :)